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Ari Before Ari: Let's Hug it Out, Jon Stewart

Today's New York Times Arts & Leisure section fronts a long, redeeming profile of Entourage's Jeremy Piven that reveals his softer, more thoughtful, more Alison Kraus-listening side. Author Melena Ryzik focuses on Piven's acting pedigree, his serious theater credentials (put to use this month in a Broadway revival of David Mamet's Speed the Plow), and his desires to escape the overwhelming shadow of manic alpha-agent Ari Gold, a role that has earned him three consecutive Emmys, even as it has begun to inhabit him in real life. But in this 2001 clip from the Daily Show, when he was known mainly as John Cusack's sidekick, Piven reveals his inner Ari Gold three years before the premiere of Entourage. Scroll to 2 minutes and 40 seconds to see how Ari's catchphrase was born out of a brotherly desire to console a weepy Jon Stewart in the wake of 9/11.